MD/DC Schools not good enough

[Anonymous]

How on earth do you homeschool a 4 year old??? That is just keeping them home and teaching them stuff... not school. At this age it is about socialization, peer and adult negotiation. You can keep on "homeschooling" as you call it for preK/K, and just do activities. Also, think of why your kid was not accepted into that school - maybe the social skills were not there...

preschool is NOT about the academics!!

[Anonymous]

try montessori if you think your child won't be challenged enough - the kids progress at their own rate through the different areas so if she can truly read and add she would just do the next level of work at the montessori

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ive searched and searched for a year for a school my 4 year old daughter to go to this year. I found 1 private school that I found worthy but was not accepted. Ive home schooled her her entire life. She cant start kindergarten because she is "too young" but I know she is academically ready. What do I do? I dont want my daughter at home complaining shes bored and wont have the time to homeschool any longer. I need to find a place where she can learn something on her level. All the daycare/preschools ive seen are just learning ABC and 123 recognition, when my daughter can already read and add. Please help!

You need a more reasonable assessment of "worthiness." (If for no other reason, that when your daughter doesn't get into Harvard [or Duke/MIT/Princeton/Stanford/Yale] she needs to be able to go on living in your eyes.)

Work on it!

I have never settled for less just becus i wasnt accepted into some program/job/school. i raise my children to never settle for anything less than what they believe is best for them.

If you don't raise them to spell, capitalize, and understand the accepted forms of writing in English (and you'll find this a real challenge because clearly you can't do it yourself) they're going to be settling for a lot less in life than you hope for them. Seriously, based on your own writing you can't possibly be a good judge of academic quality. You wouldn't recognize Strunk & White ("The Elements of Style") if it jumped up and bit you in the face.

Maybe you are new to DCUM, but we don't correct grammar and spelling. I usually assume that the majority of typos are b/c mom is holding a baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ive searched and searched for a year for a school my 4 year old daughter to go to this year. I found 1 private school that I found worthy but was not accepted. Ive home schooled her her entire life. She cant start kindergarten because she is "too young" but I know she is academically ready. What do I do? I dont want my daughter at home complaining shes bored and wont have the time to homeschool any longer. I need to find a place where she can learn something on her level. All the daycare/preschools ive seen are just learning ABC and 123 recognition, when my daughter can already read and add. Please help!

This is a joke, right? How do you home-school a 4 yo? Most preschools, unless they're montessoris, are really play-based.

I home schooled my kids in preschool. The older one just entered K, and her teachers are amazed at how well she reads. It took all of about 20 minutes a day for math and reading. But we did it EVERY day.
The "play based" thing to me can be a bit strange. I think that many preschools use that line to get around teaching academics. You don't need to do much in the way of academics, but you need to do something. Then they can play.
I wish more kids were home schooled in the early years. If I could, I would have done it up to first grade, but I don't have the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you are new to DCUM, but we don't correct grammar and spelling. I usually assume that the majority of typos are b/c mom is holding a baby.

That's hilarious. You're the Queen of DCUM? Employing the royal "we"?

You may assume whatever you like. In the meantime, have a graduate degree, a full time job, and three children under five (5 years old). Yet I can still punctuate, spell, and manage syntax.

Perhaps your low expectations are of the soft bigotry kind?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you are new to DCUM, but we don't correct grammar and spelling. I usually assume that the majority of typos are b/c mom is holding a baby.

That's hilarious. You're the Queen of DCUM? Employing the royal "we"?

You may assume whatever you like. In the meantime, have a graduate degree, a full time job, and three children under five (5 years old). Yet I can still punctuate, spell, and manage syntax.

Perhaps your low expectations are of the soft bigotry kind?

I have a graduate degree.

I hate typos. (However, I acknowledge them and try to avoid them!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you are new to DCUM, but we don't correct grammar and spelling. I usually assume that the majority of typos are b/c mom is holding a baby.

That's hilarious. You're the Queen of DCUM? Employing the royal "we"?

You may assume whatever you like. In the meantime, have a graduate degree, a full time job, and three children under five (5 years old). Yet I can still punctuate, spell, and manage syntax.

Perhaps your low expectations are of the soft bigotry kind?

No, just reality. This is an anonymous board for the most part, not a job application. People are busy. They are often using some type of teeny tiny hand held thing to type, with screen glare, and speeds so slow that you would have to be very patient to go back and fix things. There are also many who speak English as a second language. We shouldn't scare them away from this forum. The point that OP was trying to make was understood by most of the people who read it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, just reality. This is an anonymous board for the most part, not a job application. People are busy. They are often using some type of teeny tiny hand held thing to type, with screen glare, and speeds so slow that you would have to be very patient to go back and fix things. There are also many who speak English as a second language. We shouldn't scare them away from this forum. The point that OP was trying to make was understood by most of the people who read it.

I thought the OP sounded utterly and completely divorced from reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, just reality. This is an anonymous board for the most part, not a job application. People are busy. They are often using some type of teeny tiny hand held thing to type, with screen glare, and speeds so slow that you would have to be very patient to go back and fix things. There are also many who speak English as a second language. We shouldn't scare them away from this forum. The point that OP was trying to make was understood by most of the people who read it.

I thought the OP sounded utterly and completely divorced from reality.

Maybe divorced from DCUM reality, but not in the home school crowd. If you teach your child at home for a while, schools ARE scary. Very scary. The academics often are inferior to what you can do at home alone. After a while when home schooled kids are mainstreamed, the families eventually get used to the new setting, it takes time, but at first there is culture shock.

[Anonymous]

Just to clarify about the value of play for young children -- research has shown that imaginative play increases kids' academic behavior in later years:

http://www.psychologymatters.org/singer.html

So a play based preschool may be worth it. Maybe not, if you can structure your child's day so that s/he has plenty of opportunity for free play. With only 20 mins of academic instruction, as a PP noted, you'd have plenty of time for unstructured free play.

Then there's the social piece. Hard(er) to replicate at home. Depends how much of a premium you place on being able to navigate the social world (in addition to academics). Don't forget street smarts vs. book smarts!

[Anonymous]

pp, there are many studies about Montessori schools which are not as play based as traditional preschools. They say that Montessori kids often have better social skills. I just think that there are tons of "play based" preschools where kids can learn how to fight, can be ignored by staff, and do zero ABC123. That is a waste.
Also, there is very little evidence that home schooled kids have poor social skills. There are many studies that actually put home schooled kids ahead of other kids WRT social skills. So far, there is very little to support kids in middle and upper socioeconomic backgrounds in any type of school before Kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:pp, there are many studies about Montessori schools which are not as play based as traditional preschools. They say that Montessori kids often have better social skills. I just think that there are tons of "play based" preschools where kids can learn how to fight, can be ignored by staff, and do zero ABC123. That is a waste.
Also, there is very little evidence that home schooled kids have poor social skills. There are many studies that actually put home schooled kids ahead of other kids WRT social skills. So far, there is very little to support kids in middle and upper socioeconomic backgrounds in any type of school before Kindergarten.

Not necessarily true. If you're really into language immersion, then starting in nursery is the way to go. Especially if you want to give your child a really challenging language like Mandarin or Japanese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you are new to DCUM, but we don't correct grammar and spelling. I usually assume that the majority of typos are b/c mom is holding a baby.

That's hilarious. You're the Queen of DCUM? Employing the royal "we"?

You may assume whatever you like. In the meantime, have a graduate degree, a full time job, and three children under five (5 years old). Yet I can still punctuate, spell, and manage syntax.

Perhaps your low expectations are of the soft bigotry kind?

No, just reality. This is an anonymous board for the most part, not a job application. People are busy. They are often using some type of teeny tiny hand held thing to type, with screen glare, and speeds so slow that you would have to be very patient to go back and fix things. There are also many who speak English as a second language. We shouldn't scare them away from this forum. The point that OP was trying to make was understood by most of the people who read it.

I think it was also the irony that OP was complaining/concerned about school quality, but then her post was just riddled with typos and grammatical issues. If the post was about anything else, we'd probably be more likely to overlook the typos, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it was also the irony that OP was complaining/concerned about school quality, but then her post was just riddled with typos and grammatical issues. If the post was about anything else, we'd probably be more likely to overlook the typos, etc.

TOTALLY agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you are new to DCUM, but we don't correct grammar and spelling. I usually assume that the majority of typos are b/c mom is holding a baby.

That's hilarious. You're the Queen of DCUM? Employing the royal "we"?

You may assume whatever you like. In the meantime, have a graduate degree, a full time job, and three children under five (5 years old). Yet I can still punctuate, spell, and manage syntax.

Perhaps your low expectations are of the soft bigotry kind?

I have a graduate degree.

I hate typos. (However, I acknowledge them and try to avoid them!)

Yay! A shitfight!